The Oct 31st update to this…

The Oct 31st update to this proposal represents another example of the Ford government's abject failure to adopt anything vaguely representing evidence based decision making. Recently, an article published in the Toronto Star ("Do cycling corridors really slow traffic? We fact-checked the bike lane blame game") drew upon the available evidence to investigate the implications that bike lanes have on traffic in Toronto. This was a balanced report that clearly indicated occasions where the available data was lacking or even misleading (due to confounding variables such as traffic fluctuations due to the COVID-19 pandemic). With regard to the question of whether bike lanes have slowed traffic in Toronto, the data does not paint a clear picture. Nevertheless, Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria (whose education is in the fields of finance and law) confidently states that "the removal of lanes of traffic on our busiest roads, such as Bloor Street, University Avenue, and Yonge Street, has only made gridlock worse." How can he know this? Is he privy to traffic data that these Toronto Star journalists were not? Do we really want to live in a society where public figures can simply create facts based on their own personal opinions? Mr Sakaria also notes that “Toronto already loses $11 billion each year due to congestion," which is a red herring with regard to whether bike lanes are significantly impeding the flow of traffic. It is shameful that public funds be wasted destroying infrastructure when there is no clear justification for said destruction.